


two towns from me

by perbe



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perbe/pseuds/perbe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a snowstorm for Glen to look at anything other than the dimming fire, but Jack supposes that doesn't matter anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two towns from me

**Author's Note:**

> i thought id try my hand at these two. seeing as its jacks birthday, i tried some jack pov. apologies! im rather out of touch with my muse. 
> 
> the song at the beginning of this fic is called "two towns from me" by blind pilot.

and stepping in too deep  
watching water thread my sleeve

**.**  
 **two towns from me**

“It is snowing,” Glen declares. 

He’s being generous, really. It is all too humid for winter; the snow falls too quickly and Jack thinks the streets are going to be absolutely disgusting. He beams at Glen like he’s provided an existential answer anyway. 

“I suppose I’d better stay here and wait it out, then,” comes with a cursory glance through his eyelashes. Predictably, Glen hasn’t moved from his position since this conversation first began. The man sits at the edge of the sofa, as if he is afraid to put too much weight on it. Even his expression is as flaccid as ever, which makes Jack chortle. 

Secretly, of course. 

But, it’s not like he’ll actually get a response. The room is foggy with the white sighs that the heat of the dying fire is not enough to dispel—Jack isn’t sure who they came from anymore. Briefly, he wonders if this was always the way it was. 

(It wasn’t. Was it?)

“It’s beautiful. The snow, I mean,” Jack provides, even though the snow isn’t all that white. He is rewarded with a snort. Progress has been made. “What do you think it’s like out there?” 

“Cold,” answers Glen, eyes trained on the depths of the fireplace like they have been for the past few hours. Well, except for when he glared accusingly out the window.

Jack scoots closer to the fireplace and makes a big show of warming his hands. The action makes the empty place on the sofa between them painfully obvious. 

Sometimes Jack likes to pretend it’s possible to forget they are only two people, and that they don’t move with the space of another person between them. And the piano in the parlor doesn’t collect dust between its keys between his visits, and eventually they won’t keep away from it altogether, he and its intended player. It is easier on days when the snow falls soft like memories. On days when the snow comes in saturated droves and muddies the whole city, it’s ever so much harder. 

Maybe that’s why Glen’s being unusually quiet. Because Jack doesn’t slip up and call him Os—

Jack flinches. 

And this time Glen notices. 

_Don’t say anything._

Please.

Surely what he sees in those eyes can only be another one of the thoughts he wishes Glen would keep quiet about and he has to use all of his resolve to keep looking. Others disarm by dishonesty. Glen uses the truth. Every such incidence is completely unintentional, which makes them wholly unpleasant. Still, he has learned to smile in the face of just about everything, and that’s what he does. 

“Does it remind you of Lacie?” 

If he closes his eyes, he will hear himself falter. Or it could be Glen. Or both of them. Jack is no longer sure if the details serve a purpose other than distraction. The grin, however, remains plastered on his face. 

Recalling Lacie is a happy thing. 

Recalling Lacie and a crumbling toy rabbit and tiny fists beating his chest in the rhythm of his heart and the world, paper-thin and starved of air. 

Recalling Lacie is so intensely happy it _hurts._

“She found me in the snow,” he tells Oswald and not Glen, but neither he nor Lacie are here anymore. “I’ll never forget it.” 

Glen closes his eyes. The aftereffect of his gaze remains. He stands up like that, with his eyes closed for the first time in who knows how long. Even in the dim lighting, Jack can make out the bruises at the tops of his cheeks. He is sure he is sporting bruises of his own. 

How long has it been? 

Two weeks? 

When Glen Baskerville’s eyes open again, Jack is ready to meet them. 

“I never thought of her like snow.” Every word is intended to make him feel cornered, Jack thinks. Or maybe it’s because Glen is the one voicing them in that careful broken way of his. “She was warm. Snow is not.” 

Jack quirks an eyebrow. “Of course it’s not. I mean the general feeling, though. She came and went and—“

“No.” 

“No?” Glen’s expression is as unreadable as Oswald’s and the five chains residing in him serve to further cast his thoughts into shadow. So perhaps it is only Jack’s imagination that he hears a warning. 

“No. Snow freezes all it touches.” A pause, then he starts towards the door. “I will be back.” 

Glen is halfway across the room when Jack says, “Not all it touches, apparently,” and gestures to the wet and muddy cobblestone of Sablier outside. The snow is still falling, faster than ever now. He bets all the street stalls have been stacked away. It will be a quiet walk to the Vessalius mansion, but after this silence, it will be a welcome respite. 

Glen says nothing in return.


End file.
